{"id":464860,"date":"2022-09-08T12:32:28","date_gmt":"2022-09-08T12:32:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/?post_type=blog_posts&#038;p=464860"},"modified":"2022-12-20T13:54:13","modified_gmt":"2022-12-20T13:54:13","slug":"desperately-seeking-stability-libya-elections-and-enduring-political-stalemate","status":"publish","type":"blog_posts","link":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/blog_posts\/desperately-seeking-stability-libya-elections-and-enduring-political-stalemate\/","title":{"rendered":"Desperately Seeking Stability: Libya, Elections, and Enduring Political Stalemate"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_464966\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 750px;\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-464966\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-464966 size-large lazyloaded\" src=\"https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Libya-Protests-1-1024x576.jpg\" sizes=\"(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Libya-Protests-1-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Libya-Protests-1-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Libya-Protests-1-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Libya-Protests-1-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Libya-Protests-1-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Libya-Protests-1-1568x882.jpg 1568w\" alt=\"\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Libya-Protests-1-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Libya-Protests-1-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Libya-Protests-1-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Libya-Protests-1-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Libya-Protests-1-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Libya-Protests-1-1568x882.jpg 1568w\" data-src=\"https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Libya-Protests-1-1024x576.jpg\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-464966 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Libya-Protests-1-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"750\" height=\"422\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Libya-Protests-1-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Libya-Protests-1-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Libya-Protests-1-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Libya-Protests-1-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Libya-Protests-1-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/mecouncil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Libya-Protests-1-1568x882.jpg 1568w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\" \/><\/noscript><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-464966\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">People protest against a power outage inside Martyrs\u2019 Square, in Tripoli, Libya July 1, 2022. REUTERS\/Hazem Ahmed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">It has been a long, hot summer in Libya. Demand for air conditioning has strained the country\u2019s electrical grid, leading to rolling blackouts that have underscored the unity government\u2019s inability to improve the daily lives of its people. With frustration mounting over the ongoing failure of political elites to organize elections, the blackouts prompted well-organized\u2014if occasionally violent\u2014protests in cities across the country in July. Young Libyans took to the streets to demand improved government services, economic opportunities, and the realization of elections promised by Libya\u2019s power-sharing agreement of February 2021.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The protests coincided with increasing contestation between political elites, especially after elections planned for December 2021 were canceled. Since then, the speaker of the House of Representatives (HoR), Aguila Saleh, has called for Libya\u2019s interim prime minister, Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, to step down, and went as far as having the parliament appoint Fathi Bashagha\u2014a Saleh ally\u2014to replace him in February. For his part, Dbeibah refused to resign absent an election. This has returned Libya to a volatile situation in which there are two competing claimants to legitimate leadership of the country. In July and August, militias tied to both officials have since engaged in multiple gun battles on the streets of the capital.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Both the protests and the armed skirmishes have unsettled the political elite that has governed Libya since the power-sharing agreement was put in place. Many Libya-watchers have raised concerns about a potential return to civil war. However, neither protests nor sporadic violence are likely to significantly change the political situation in Libya. Rather, the structure of the power-sharing agreement\u2014and the complex set of skewed incentives imposed by its design\u2014will ensure that political elites push to maintain the status quo, including through efforts to maintain a delicate balance between the interests of both sides of the conflict and to delay (or indefinitely suspend) elections.<\/p>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em><strong>Libya\u2019s Tenuous Power-Sharing Agreement under Pressure<\/strong><\/em><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The United Nations-sponsored power-sharing agreement was enabled by an international community eager to bring the civil war to a rapid end after a decade of political and economic instability. In this regard, the agreement has been a success despite the continued existence of numerous militias and private armies. To ensure its initial acceptance, however, negotiators structured the agreement around a distribution of ministerial portfolios and government positions to representatives of disparate interest groups. This left Dbeibah, as interim prime minister, with a fractious cabinet unable to effect coherent policy solutions. Moreover, the arrangement created unchecked opportunities for corruption and malfeasance as power players took advantage of access to government resources to enrich themselves and their cronies.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Since the agreement came into effect, Libya\u2019s complicated network of competing interests, political groups, militias, and tribal associations has coalesced around three nodes of power represented by Dbeibah, Saleh, and Khalifa Haftar, the commander of the country\u2019s largest private army. Competition between these three nodes has led to a suspension of oil exports and continued contestation over control of sovereign institutions like the central bank. No substantive steps have been taken to form a united Libyan military or police forces, disarm militias, or end the presence of foreign military actors providing support for different sides of the conflict. The unity government has lacked the power to improve government services or even to secure a monopoly over the use of force. While political discord has increased since the cancellation of planned elections in December 2021, the power-sharing agreement remains in place, along with the dysfunctional governmental structure.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The recent protests have had an impact on the struggle between the Dbeibah and Saleh camps. As some protesters directed their frustration at Saleh and the parliament, even burning parliamentary offices, the House speaker and his hand-picked prime minister, Bashagha, engaged militias in Tripoli in several failed attempts to secure access to ministerial offices and to push out officials from Dbeibah\u2019s cabinet. Dbeibah\u2019s response to protests has been strikingly different, but it too has introduced an element of instability into Libya\u2019s politics\u2014he reached out to secure an apparent alliance with long-time rival (and former ally to Saleh) Khalifa Haftar. To foster this alliance, Dbeibah replaced the head of the National Oil Company with a Haftar supporter. While politicizing the leadership of an institution essential to the Libyan economy\u2019s stability, this move creates an opportunity for the country to begin exporting oil from terminals closed by Haftar\u2019s forces. In turn, this will ensure the government has access to resources needed to expand services and create jobs. It also will enhance Dbeibah\u2019s standing with external parties desperate for a resumption of Libyan oil exports.<\/p>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><em><strong>Prospects for Free and Fair Elections<\/strong><\/em><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">When considering prospects for Libya going forward, concerns about a return to civil war are likely overblown. On departing her post at the end of July, United Nations Advisor on Libya Stephanie Williams <a href=\"https:\/\/english.aawsat.com\/home\/article\/3818746\/williams-calls-%E2%80%98historic-compromises%E2%80%99-libya\">warned<\/a> that the unwillingness of Libya\u2019s political elite to put the country\u2019s interests over their own threatened to undermine the country\u2019s stability. This is certainly true, and although competition among Libya\u2019s political elite for control over the state and its resources has intensified, both sides would ultimately lose out if the country relapsed into widescale violence. Rather, Libyans are likely to face a period of mild, sporadic clashes as elites test out the will of competitors and international actors. The governmental structure put in place under the power-sharing agreement is likely to hold, as it serves the interests of the broader political elite.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In this context, near-term prospects for elections are not favorable. While the power-sharing agreement was secured with an understanding that national elections would be held within a year, no agreed-upon terms were included. This has allowed politicians like Dbeibah and others to support elections in public while quibbling over details in order to delay their realization. In reality, those in power today are reticent to return voters to the polls because it risks disrupting a grip on power that was attained through elite politics rather than popular mandate.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Given the incentives to delay, elections are likely to only commence if their results can be guaranteed, or if the political calculus should change dramatically in the favor of either Dbeibah or Saleh\u2019s camps. In the current energy security environment, the international community would likely back the outcome of such an election, even if it was not free and fair. While that will frustrate the youth who have taken to the streets\u2014and the revolutionaries of 2011\u2014who deserve the opportunity to realize their democratic ambitions, most Libyans are desperately seeking stability after a decade of conflict and would accept with relief any conclusion of the gamesmanship and chaos that has gripped the country since the revolution.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h6><em>The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Middle East Council on Global Affairs. <\/em><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":464966,"parent":0,"menu_order":3,"template":"","blog_categories":[307],"blog_issues":[312,314],"blog_countries":[354,330],"blog_regions":[367],"class_list":["post-464860","blog_posts","type-blog_posts","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","blog_categories-home-featured-blog","blog_issues-council-views","blog_issues-great-power-competition","blog_countries-afghanistan","blog_countries-qatar","blog_regions-gcc","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_posts\/464860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/blog_posts"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"blog_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_categories?post=464860"},{"taxonomy":"blog_issues","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_issues?post=464860"},{"taxonomy":"blog_countries","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_countries?post=464860"},{"taxonomy":"blog_regions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_regions?post=464860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}